United India Insurance mulls listing of shares

Government owned non-life insurer United India Insurance Company Ltd has taken a preliminary decision to list its shares through an public offer raising around Rs 1,500 crore, said top officials on Thursday.

The Board has taken a view to list the shares and raise around Rs 1,500 crore. This is the first step and not the final step.

The owner – central government – has to take the final call on the matter,” the officials told IANS on the condition of anonymity.

We have not decided on the share capital and the premium at which the shares are to be listed, they added.

Presenting the 2016-17 budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said “Public shareholding in government owned companies is a means of ensuring higher levels of transparency and accountability.

To promote this objective, the general insurance companies owned by the government will be listed in the stock exchanges.

Insurance Amendment Act 2015 amended General Insurance Business Nationalisation Act and introduced a new section 10B providing that GIC and the public sector general insurers may raise their capital for increasing their business in rural and social sectors, to meet solvency margin and such other purposes as the Central Government may empower, K.K. Srinivasan, former member, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), had earlier told IANS.